Screw Worm
cwilcox | March 8, 2009Ok, I'm a little late, so I figured I'd make this one extra-disgusting to cover the time you weren't cringing.
Meet the Screw Worm: Cochliomyia hominivorax. "Hominivorax" means "man-eater", just for your edification.
The screw worm actually isn't a worm at all - it's a fly larvae. Like other maggots, it likes to eat flesh. But unlike other maggots, it doesn't just eat dead flesh. It specializes on eating the nice, healthy flesh surrounding where it hatches, whether that be in an animals' wound or a newborn baby's bellybutton. They can't live off carrion like other maggots do.
So the mother…